The telecommunications industry has seen significant technological advancements in the last few years. Long gone are the days of yesteryear where the telephone was praised as a simple, handy, and relatively private device used to communicate primarily with friends, loved ones, and local merchants.
Today, the owner of a telephone is as likely to curse the telephone as to praise it. He is often greeted upon his arrival home after a long day of work with a barrage of unsolicited phone calls originating from parties unknown, all trying to sell him their particular goods or services. Screening of incoming calls via use of an answering machine is a partial answer, but tends to annoy family, friends, and others known by the owner of the telephone to have a less sinister reason to call, since all calls must go through the answering machine to be screened. In addition, many "friendly" callers have a condition known as "answering machine phobia" and will hang up after a short number of rings so as not to get the answering machine.
Some of the regional telephone companies in the United States now offer their customers a service called "Caller ID". Caller ID displays the telephone number of the incoming call to the telephone owner as the telephone rings. The owner can look at the number and decide whether he should answer the call or not. Although Caller ID has several advantages over answering machines, it has its limitations. Often, the owner cannot remember if the telephone number being displayed is one he recognizes as being "friendly" or not, and often errs in answering the phone when he didn't want to and vice versa.
The technological "advancements" of the telephone have caused other problems for the owner of the phone as well. When the owner wants to initiate a call to a business to inquire about goods or services, the friendly local merchant of yesteryear often no longer answers the phone. Instead, the owner's call is received by a complex telemarketing facility located somewhere in the world. The owner must then often endure delay and frustration as his call is bounced around inside the telemarketing facility in a search for a telemarketer possessing the skills necessary to respond to this specific inquiry. The owner may also be required to respond to a complex series of prompts emanating from a recorded, robot-like voice by pressing a series of numbers or other characters on the telephone keypad. These crude methods of call routing are unsatisfactory to the telemarketing facilities as well, since their telemarketers are being used inefficiently. More importantly, their customers are unhappy and agitated, and may decide to take their business elsewhere.